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Page 363
give him some drug that would keep him out of the battle, but such an idea was only a mark of the temporary hysteria of fear that had gripped her. To do such a thing would be the end of their marriage. Ian would leave her. Love, if he loved her, would not outlive the dishonor she would bring upon him.
It was an interesting choice, Alinor thought, crouching shivering before the fire. Would I prefer to lose Ian by death or by hatred? But even as she posed the question, Alinor knew her preferences were irrelevant. It was Ian's life. Although she might manage that in small matters, she had no right to interfere in this. There was no doubt in Alinor's mind that Ian would far rather be dead than dishonored. Nor was he deceiving himself about the possibility he would die the next day, Alinor knew. That piece of divine lunacy about directing the king's hatred to himself was no more than a sugared comfit for her. Alinor was no fool, once her sudden rages abated. What Ian had done in the hall was to announce publicly that he knew there would be an attempt made to kill him and to pledge every man there to safeguard his wife's freedom.
Alinor whimpered aloud in her pain. Ian, too? Ian, too? She could not bear it. She had hardly finished weeping for Simon, and now she must begin to weep for Ian. And this weeping would be bitterer by far. Alinor had nothing to reproach herself for in Simon's death. He had died peacefully and willingly. But she had murdered Ian, as surely as if she wielded the sword or mace that would strike him down. In her lust and her fear and her loneliness, she had leapt at his offer of marriageand now he would die for her weakness. And there was nothing she could donothing.
A groan from the bed brought Alinor's self-recrimination to an abrupt end. Idiot that she was to sit lamenting what had not yet happened! She rose from the hearth and hurried to the antechamber where she

 
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